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Kassandra Santillan pictured at Daly City Station, where she disembarks to get to her classes at SFSU.

Do you have a favorite BART memory or story to share? Email a short summary to BART Storyteller Michelle Robertson at [email protected], and she may follow up to schedule an interview.    

In August, Kassandra Santillan started her second year at San Francisco State University, her dream college where she studies microbiology, her dream major. If she couldn’t take BART to school, she wouldn’t be able to attend. 

“BART made it happen for me,” she said. “I can’t afford to live near campus, so I’d probably be at a community college instead.”  

Santillan is the first person in her immediate family to attend college. She’s always aspired to study at SFSU because that's where her aunt went, and her aunt was one of the only people she knew who graduated from college.  

Santillan lives in East Oakland, where she grew up. She doesn’t currently have access to a car, so she takes BART twice a day, five days a week to school. Before starting at SFSU, she’d never really used the system. 

“We didn’t travel far away when I was young,” she said. “The only other time I’d use BART was for field trips to San Francisco." 

Growing up, Santillan often “felt really suffocated.” She’d hear stories of people going to Union Square at Christmastime or the mall at Powell Street, but “it wasn’t accessible to me.” 

“I never really got out much before,” she said. “BART opened the Bay to me. I had no idea it was so easy to get to all these great places.” Now, she takes BART pretty much everywhere. In addition to school, she’ll ride the train to the mall in Milpitas or the Embarcadero, where she walks the waterfront to Pier 39 and back.  

Santillan treasures her time on the train. She’ll do some drawing, finish up assignments, and sometimes just chill out.  

“Every day is so hectic as a college student,” she said. “Commuting is my time to unwind.”  

When she graduates, Santillan wants to be a clinical lab scientist. She’s wanted to be a scientist since meeting one in elementary school during career day.  

“I remember at the end of the day they asked everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up. Most of them said teacher or a doctor,” she said. “I was one of the few who wanted to be a scientist.”  

“It’s pretty crazy to be studying in the field now,” she said. “It feels unreal sometimes. I know a lot of people who don’t get this opportunity.”  

Sometimes, she has to remind herself: “I’m really here, and I’m really doing this thing I’ve been trying to do all my life.”  

About the BART Connects Storytelling Series

The BART Connects storytelling series was launched in 2023 to showcase the real people who ride and rely on BART and illustrate the manifold ways the system affects their lives. You can follow the ongoing series at bart.gov/news. 

The series grew out of BART's Role in the Region Study, which demonstrates BART’s importance to the Bay Area’s mobility, cultural diversity, environmental and economic sustainability. We conducted a call for stories to hear from our riders and understand what BART means to them. The call was publicized on our website, social media, email blasts, and flyering at stations. More than 300 riders responded, and a selection of respondents who opted-in were interviewed for the BART Connects series. 

Do you have a favorite BART memory or story to share? Email a short summary to BART Storyteller Michelle Robertson at [email protected], and she may follow up to schedule an interview.  

Elvis Presley loved his bubblegum pink Cadillac. Elvis Herselvis prefers a blue-and-white ride. Her vehicle is roomier than that Fleetwood Sixty Special, boasts twice as many wheels, and unlike that old gas guzzler, it runs on electricity.  

We’ll toss her the mic so she can say it herselvis: “My life would suck without BART.”  

For thirty years, Elvis Herselvis, the drag king persona of legendary drag performer, artist, and musician Leigh Crow, has taken BART to rehearsals, performances, bars, brunches, and her brother’s house in Richmond.  

Unlike Mr. Presley, Crow doesn’t drive, so without BART she’s not totally sure what she’d do. Spend a lot on rideshares, probably, but that’s a cruddy option when you’re regularly traveling back and forth between San Francisco, where she typically performs, and Oakland, where she lives. About a decade ago, Crow moved to Oakland after being priced out of San Francisco. She came to the Bay Area from suburban Phoenix as a young lesbian looking for performing opportunities.  

“Public transportation was one of the very attractive things about moving to San Francisco,” Crow said. “Where I grew up, you had to have a car. In the Bay, you can get where you need to go almost entirely on transit.” 

Crow got her start in drag in the late 80s at the lesbian club Female Trouble in the Haight. The club’s producer needed a small act to fill a hole in the schedule between Christmas and New Years. The girls said, “Let’s do a drag show!”  

“Some were doing Bowie, Guns and Roses, that type of thing,” Crow said. “But when it came time for the performance, I was the only one left on the billing.” She performed as Elvis Herselvis, and the crowd loved her.  

“They got to play the part of being screaming teeny boppers, which many of them had never gotten a chance to do,” she said.  

Women were highly involved in the Bay Area drag scene back then, but there weren’t as many drag kings performing, and when they were, you didn’t hear about them as often as the queens.  

Crow had a hand in changing that when she started performing as Elvis Herselvis. She’s considered the world’s first female Elvis impersonator, and she was one of the first out lesbian performers to tour the southern U.S., said Ruby Vixen, Crow’s partner in life and performance. The two regularly perform together with their country western band Velvetta. 

Ruby Vixen (left) and Leigh Crow (right) perform at the Hubba Hubba Revue. Photo: Sylvie Barak

“She toured the South in the late 80s and 90s, long before ‘Drag Race’ and the visibility that came with it,” Vixen said. One of Crow’s tours brought her to the Second International Elvis Presley Conference held at the University of Mississippi in 1996. Crow gained national notoriety when the organization running Graceland pulled their support for the conference due to Crow’s participation.  

In San Francisco, things were different. The drag circuit was a punk-rock scene, “very riot grrrl,” Crow said.  

“Drag was a lot weirder and less homogenized then,” she continued. “People played all sorts of characters. They were scrappy." 

Public transportation enabled Crow and many of her friends and fellow performers to get to and from their performances, including at historic venues like the legendary lesbian bar White Horse Inn. 

“I am just so grateful to have an alternative option to driving,” Crow said. “I also feel good that I’m not having an impact on the environment like I would if I were driving. There are little things you can do, and that’s one of them." 

Crow can regularly be scene on BART in “various states of drag.” People aren’t fazed by it much – it's the Bay Area after all – and most reactions are positive.  

Crow said she's proud to wear her gender-bending costumes onboard. “It’s a signal boost that encourages everyone of every gender that drag is viable, and that you should feel safe and welcome to do it.”  

Ruby Vixen (left) and Leigh Crow (right) at MacArthur Station.

Added Vixen: “Public transit serves young and lower-income communities, which often contribute to the most outrageous, diverse, and innovative drag in the Bay. And it’s always been that way.” 

Without BART, the underground performance scenes of San Francisco past and present would look different, including venues like OASIS, where Crow performs in the ‘Star Trek’ show as Captain Kirk. She’ll revive the role in August.  

During her photoshoot with BART, Elvis Herselvis turned heads every which way she went. Some passersby took pics on their phones as she strutted about MacArthur Station in her custom silver suit, sparkling cowboy hat, and hefty belt buckle. The suit was custom made by Vixen, a costume and clothing designer who owns Dandy and Vixen with Crow. 

“We chose the fabric because it looks great under stage lights,” Crow said. We also discovered the fabric looks sumptuous in front of the silver steel of a passing BART train. In the sun, the two materials bounced off one another like they were dancing.  

Crow will have an equally eye-catching outfit for San Francisco Pride celebrations this weekend. Pride Month is naturally her and Vixen’s busiest season of the year. The couple plan to take BART into the city for Pride, including the San Francisco Dyke March on Saturday in the Mission District.  

Crow especially looks forward to the ride home on BART after Pride, when “everyone’s tired and sunburned and happy and feeling the freedom and the love.”  

BART, she pointed out, is also the safest option if you’re planning to imbibe. 

“You can go out and get wasted in San Francisco then take BART home and be safe,” she said. Just remember to be safe, respectful of your fellow passengers, and follow BART’s Code of Conduct.  

This weekend, look for Elvis Herselvis and Ruby Vixen on BART and enjoy what will certainly be a festive and celebratory ride.

About BART Connects

The BART Connects storytelling series was launched in 2023 to showcase the real people who ride and rely on BART and illustrate the manifold ways the system affects their lives. The subjects of BART Connects will be featured in videos as well as a forthcoming marketing campaign that is slated to run across the Bay Area. Find all the stories at bart.gov/bartconnects. 

The series grew out of BART's Role in the Region Study, which demonstrates BART’s importance to the Bay Area’s mobility, cultural diversity, environmental and economic sustainability. We conducted a call for stories to hear from our riders and understand what BART means to them. More than 300 riders responded, and a selection of respondents were interviewed for the BART Connects series. 

Follow our rider guide below and learn more about our special Pride service here.

Leigh Crow and Ruby Vixen’s upcoming BARTable events:  

• Saturday and Sunday, July 1 and 2: Leigh and Ruby will be vending their Dandy and Vixen wearables at Mosswood Meltdown in Mossword Park. To get to Mosswood, take BART to MacArthur Station and walk about 13 minutes to 3612 Webster St., Oakland.  

• August 8 through 31: D’arcy Drollinger presents Star Trek LIVE!, featuring Leigh as Captain Kirk, at Oasis. Take BART to Civic Center Station or 16th St Mission Station and walk about 16 minutes to 298 11th St., San Francisco.